Ready for the boring slide show?

Having discovered that I can only drink half a pint of Guinness and still stay standing and that I can't type for toffee on those blackberry thingys I thought that, now I'm back home and sat at my own PC, it may be time to write about my holiday.

I have had a lovely time with LOF in Dublin, Ireland and I am very sad that the playfighting, Guinness drinking and strolling around town are over. We have strolled around pretty much all of Dublin City Centre over the last few days and I've thoroughly enjoyed our time spent alone.

Our first day led to the discovery that the people of Ireland aren't all small. In fact, according to this statue, this guy was even taller than Matt! (no mean feat - I enjoyed the thought that Matt might know what it feels like for me when I look up into his eyes!)

This is one of the many statues and pieces of art that I mentioned yesterday. It's one of the ways in which the Dubliners seem to keep alive their history and cultural identity. This is obviously a record of the day on which an incredibly tall man came to Dublin and drank the 10 million pints of Guinness produced everyday all by himself. (Sorry, no he did save one for Lord of the House and Bogus)

As one such Dubliner said to me whilst I sat waiting for LOF to come out of the toilet. "Ah you might as well be in Birmingham as to Dublin, it's all the same really" I think he was talking about how we all spoke the same language and had similar cultural identities. I asked him what the Guiness stockhouse was like and he said he'd been loads of times. I guess, therefore, that the Guinness Stockhouse is to Dubliner what Cadbury's world is to us Brummies! This beautiful fountain was disappointingly made of neither chocolate or Guinness but it was still pretty cool and was one of the ways in which the exhibition persuaded us that Guinness was good for you. It does have water in it you know!

The tour was quite fun; we got to stand inside a giant barrel and everything! We saw all of the old Guinness adverts and looked at the old Guinness artifacts like a bottle of the stuff that was still intact after surving the Easter rising (Still wouldn't want to drink it though) and a collection of beer Mats through the ages. I was some what disapointed to discover that there was no cadabra style lepricorn ride but other than that it was spot on! As I mentioned yesterday, that latter part of the tour was spent drinking the 'liquid gold' and propping me up as we walked around the gift shop!

On our way out I spotted this sign, I took a picture of it and I'm planning to set it as Matt's desktop (to replace the semi naked Mrs Solice). Anyone who would like to remind their other halves of this self same idea please ask and I will send you a copy ;). What this had to do with Guiness I know not but they were actually checking the workers cars for Guiness as they left the building. I kid ye not!

Dublin is full of beautiful parks. We stumbled into a few of them. The most famous one was this park (St Stephens) where the likes of Joyce, Yeats et al. all came to get inspiration for their work. It was really cool to be wandering around on the the turf of some of my literary heroes and I have to say a big thank you to LOF for indulging me by helping me hunt down Yeat's memorial garden, Joyce's head and for being very patient whilst I scrutinised every exhibition in the Irish Writers' Museum. I know that's not his thing and I'm not sure I'd have been able walk round a museum dedicated to .NET or VB. (I guess that day may come!) I would however be very happy to wander around a guitar museum with him.

So Cheers to Tony the pony, to SFS and to the Irish Whiskeys, Guinness and wine which made it all the more fun. A big thank you to LOF for financing our little trip. Without him we'd have been sat in sunny West Heath AGAIN. I had a marvelous time. The thing that made it the most amazing holiday in the world was this person right here. I think our cat agrees. PUUUURRRRRrrrrr.